Health Care Problem Analysis Paper

This paper will provide a brief overview of the problem analyzed and study methods used to resolve the problem. The problem analyzed in this article is whether clinical care would improve if a patient with Limited English Proficiency (LEP) is a provided someone who could interpret for them in a medical setting. The article segments the interpreters into 3 groups: untrained/ad hoc interpreters, professional interpreters only, and professional and ad hoc/untrained interpreter combined. The professional interpreters varied on training time from on-the-job to formal 40-hour training in medical terminology and skills specific to performing interpretation in a medical setting. The ad hoc interpreters could be anyone from a bilingual family member

Equally important, 71 percent of the studies were conducted in the United States, while the rest of the studies were conducted in other countries where English is the official language. In brief, the studies did show that the use of interpreters did reduce disparities and improve clinical care, but lacks a formal costs analysis.

I agree with the articles findings that interpreters positively impact clinical care. This article was written before the implementation of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA). Health care organizations or private-practice physicians did not need to worry so much about the clinical care topics mentioned above. At this time, the implementation of the ACA should ameliorate the clinical care topics. Furthermore, the Centers for Medicaid and Medicare (CMS) will hold reimbursements from hospitals based on quality/clinical care

healthcare system has failed to evolve with its patient population. Even though Title VI of the federal Civil Rights Act of 1964 was created, which guarantees a patient’s right to interpretation and translation services in federally-funded activities and programs. Healthcare providers are often unclear about their legal obligations to provide language services. The unclear obligation to Title VI can be evidenced in patient non-compliance and adverse events.

The U.S. needs to focus on LEP because the Nation is becoming increasingly more diverse and the disparities will magnified in the future. In 2009, it was reported that approximately 57 million people, 20% of the U.S. population spoke another language other than English at home. What’s more approximately 25 million, 8.6 percent of the U.S. population, are defined as being LEP. Moreover, LEP does not only affect non-English speaking patients, but includes 59 percent of the elderly, which use the most health